


ficlets 01

by choir



Series: drabbles/mini fics [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Future, Domestic, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 02:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choir/pseuds/choir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sinbad and Ja'far are difficult, as usual. / Kagami thinks too much. / Kise and Kuroko adopt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ficlets 01

**Author's Note:**

> A small collection of quick things I wrote while on vacation.
> 
> (instead of finishing schoolwork.)

**Ja’far/Sinbad. In which relationships are built.**

Ja’far breathes quietly through his rags, the outline of his ribs swollen and dry. Sinbad thinks that four years is a lot, when you are young; four years is enough to develop your own revenants, angry and weeping do they become. He feels the outline of Ja’far’s throat with his other hand, holding back a knife meant to be buried in his back. The boy’s eyes are filled with something he cannot identify, and shadows—shadows come to Sinbad’s mind, as he stares at the dark features hidden beneath the cloth.  
  
And after, Ja’far does not change; Sinbad listens for his quiet breaths at night, drags his fingers along the same ribcage when they are injured. Silent. Swollen. Red becomes the feeling of ice, and scars become the color of fire. Like this, differences are scarce, requiring focus and time. When Sinbad opens his arms, Ja’far slips inside them, sheds tears against the white fabric of his shirt. Change is impossible, Sinbad thinks, when it goes against your DNA and will to live. But he has always been a man of wonder, one that proves the impossible; he knows this is why Ja’far follows him now.  
  
So, he clings; treats Ja’far like a child when he is 14, like a companion when he is 20; like a lover when he is 25. Sinbad cannot see the future, however, and does not know that this comes with time, that Ja’far banishes his own pain, lets them form into something Sinbad can touch.  
  
There are moments of regression, of raw pity, and sadness. Ja’far is quiet on these months, responding only to the gentle coaxing of Sinbad’s arms, his soft smile. Words are seldom used, even when Sinbad screams and Ja’far walks out and does not come back until a week later, the same as when he first arrived; dry, withering shadows. The cracked ribs. The torn shoes. The scars that smell of fire and welts. Echoes of a whip, of an angry master.  
  
“Why do you go back?” asks Sinbad, dabbing ointment at scabs that whisper Al Sarmen under their breath.  
  
“Why do you wait?” he responds.  
  
“That’s a stupid question.”  
  
“No, it’s not.” Ja’far is persistent. Sinbad knows he wants an answer he cannot give.  
  
“Because that’s what you do when you care,” whispers Sinbad against the outline of his companion’s bruised back, “you wait.”  
  
Ja’far stays. He never tells Sinbad what exactly he thought that day, but Sinbad is not sure he needs to ask. There are other things he waits for, as he touches the pale line of Ja’far’s wrists, but he does not mention them. Like many things, it is not necessary.

 

 

 

**Ja’far/Sinbad. In which Ja’far grows.**

The fourth dungeon is a dangerous one. Ja’far cries and cries at the sight of Sinbad’s hazed eyes, the blood stained metal vessel discarded a few meters away. He looks younger like this, Sinbad notes, watching the red on Ja’far’s cheeks crack, dried and tough. He wants to tell the boy that he is fine, he has suffered worse, but words to not come to him. Fatigue tugs at his chest and legs, so he smiles and drags a hand through Ja’far’s hair.  
  
“Nap,” he says, voice shuddery.  
  
Ja’far nods, and positions Sinbad against the trunk of a tree. He may sleep for days, under his companions watchful eye, but when he wakes Ja’far has not moved, listening to the wind weave through the underbrush. Peaceful, somehow, through the normal wild eyes filled with blood.  
  
“I’m sore,” says Sinbad, “carry me, Ja’far.”  
  
Ja’far jumps at the sound of Sinbad’s voice, and shoots him a sour look and a naughtily muttered “no,” to which Sinbad laughs and laughs—and Ja’far simply shows the whisper of a grin.  
  
Sinbad does not hold much attachment to seasons; to him, they come and go like time. But spring holds something in his bones, that day, in Ja’far’s small smile, in the simplicity of their progression. Perhaps they are more malleable than Sinbad once thought, bent like iron and meant to stay, to avoid the erosion of fire and water. This boy, however, bound in pale skin and wounds, surprises him. Consistently, he defies the laws Sinbad sets for himself, tears them like paper. A catharsis, he is.  
  
“Then help me up, at least,” he asks to Ja’far’s retreating figure.  
  
When Ja’far turns around, Sinbad notices that the tips of his ears are red in embarrassment, eyes flickered downward. Oh, simplicity. There is a blossom of fire at the bottom of Sinbad’s neck at this sight, and when they walk Sinbad wonders about when he didn’t believe in change.

 

 

 

**Kagami/Kuroko. In which Kagami learns that greed is perhaps the worst.**

Kagami tells Kise that he likes Kuroko best when he smiles.

Kise argues, childish annoyance slipping through his words, that Kuroko does not belong anywhere but on the court, a fire lighting the way from his eyes. Loving a Kuroko who did not hold a basketball in hand; Kise laughs at the idea, and through his tears he waves the thought away quickly.

The first time Kagami sees Kuroko’s smile is not on the court at all, but from simple words laced together in encouragement, in friendship. He is too naïve to recognize its affect, only that he wants more of it—somehow, the most human qualities he possesses come out around a small, 5’6” boy. He feels greed, lust, longing, and becomes scared of himself.

“We will be the best in Japan,” he tells Kuroko, glaring downwards. He tries to ignore how he can truly believe it when Kuroko’s eyes turn soft and he offers a quiet smile in return.

His smiles are rare, fleeting—the second one appears it is then gone, and Kagami finds himself paying more attention to his shadow’s face than he should. When Kuroko finally notices, he lets out a soft laugh, and Kagami feels his knees go weak.

In the dark of a silent court, Kuroko kisses him, and Kagami finds something even better than Kuroko’s smile.

 

 

 

**Kise/Kuroko. Adoption.**

Chiyo is not something either of them really plan for. Tetsuya comes home one day from his parents, mentioning talking to them about a girl looking to give up her baby for adoption at the hospital where Kuroko’s mother worked.  
  
“How old is the girl?” Ryouta asks.  
  
“Young, but I’m not sure. Too young to have a baby,” he says, voice dry. There is a moment of silence before Tetsuya adds, “Maybe they were hinting at something.”  
  
“Maybe,” Ryouta says, and then mutters, “they aren’t being particularly subtle” before laughing and kissing the top of Tetsuya’s head.  
  
Ryouta does not recall the many months leading up to the adoption of a child, only that it starts and ends slow. He knows that the way Tetsuya stares at Chiyo the first time they see her, though, will forever ingrain itself in his memory—the way his eyes soften and shoulders relax, like he was meant for this, always meant for this. It is the only moment in which Ryouta feels regret that no child will ever have Tetsuya’s eyes; a warm ocean color that he doubts he will ever fall out of love with. He imagines his nose and Tetsuya’s mouth on a little child and pines, then.  
  
But Chiyo, with her wavy bundles of hair and sharp, dark eyes—it is enough, Ryouta thinks. It is more than enough.  
  
(And when he curls up with them both at night, Chiyo nuzzles in between them and Tetsuya breathes onto his neck, warm and comforting. _A family_ , he says to himself, and exhales and inhales an emotion so powerful, he cannot identify it.)


End file.
